tuesday evening

today was the busiest day yet for gen. up early for an early breakfast tray, into the pool at 9am (where she did arm and leg movements, standing and spinning). 10am was e stim in ot and she ate some orange sherbet and signed a birthday card for sue (josh's mom, gen's mother-in-law and co-star, my co-mom-in-law.) happy birthday sue!!! she had pt at 11 and practiced driving the chair. 12 noon brought a short break and time for gen to close her eyes for a bit to rest. 12:30 was lunch, continued at 1 with courtney from ot who helped her eat some yummy-looking acorn squash. 2pm was speech, and gen worked on loud/soft, low/high, sustained sound and differentiating between vowel sounds again. we took the last few minutes to go to the office of another speech therapist and have gen say a few words to her to see if she could understand her. she could!! (those who spend a lot of time with gen learn to read the lips, facial expressions, other things that give the sense of the words. we needed to see if she really was speaking more clearly or if we were just getting better at reading her. she is definitely getting better. 2:30...ta-daa! the treadmill! gen said she felt like she could fly. she was hooked to a vest-like thing with straps for the hooks on the treadmill. we pushed the wheelchair up a ramp to the belt, two therapists strapped handles to her feet, and then another therapist turned on the machine and had the vest and hooks lift her to a standing position. she straightened her knees, kept her feet flat, held up her head and held back her shoulders. when the belt came on, the two therapists on her sides held the foot handles and helped her move her feet in a walking rhythm. another therapist was behind gen, making sure she was straight and steady. we did three or four rounds of walking, and halfway through they sped up the belt and also took away some of the support they were giving her. she was getting help with 35 percent of her weight and she was walking at a speed of about 1.6 miles per hour. (1.8 is supposedly a normal walking speed.) picture this: gen on the treadmill, video camera taping the whole thing for training and checking procedures, four therapists helping (one of them was amy who works with gen all the time), josh and i watching, and also courtney and colleen from ot watching, katie from speech watching and ginn the case worker watching. when gen did her first round of walking, wse had a spontaneous round of applause that made everyone in the gym stop to look. it was beautiful! after the treadmill, gen had speech again at 3:30, and she was still able to get out a loud voice and talked pretty clearly to her therapists. finally then the day was done except for dinner and tv. she really did a great job today (this evening she was still working, doing dot-to-dots and moving her hands from down at her sides up to her lap. that is new tonight. wow.) gen wanted me to thank jennifer for the note and the gift card. she wanted me to thank connie for the coin. and she wanted me to tell jenny "well i don't want a broad flat noodle."

susan